These materials were shared with the Psalms Group, a fellowship group with a special interest in learning about, reading and praying the Psalms daily.
Email preparing for Sunday, January 24, 2021
Dear Psalms friends,
After focusing on Psalm 32 for the first time in our group last Sunday, it seems timely to focus on Psalm 51 this coming Sunday. These are the most well-known of the penitential psalms. In our January lectionary readings, we have also recently read Psalms 6 and 38, two other penitential psalms. How can we actually use these penitential psalms as penitence? And what is penitence anyway?
Psalms Group, for January 17, 2020
In Psalm 32, the psalmist happily thanks God for forgiving his sin which had led to intense physical and emotional duress. This forgiveness came in response to his confession and repentance. Psalm 32 is a penitential psalm (along with Psalms 6, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143), but it is not sorrowful because it is a prayer of thanks for God’s grace of forgiveness. It also contains elements of wisdom teaching, using this psalmist’s experience of confession, repentance and forgiveness to teach others.
Email to the Psalms Group preparing for Sunday, January 17, 2021
Dear Psalms friends,
The “way” we have been traveling the past 2 weeks—with Psalms 1 and 2 and then Psalms 15 and 24, plus hearing Fr. Paul’s sermon last Sunday calling us to repentance from contempt—makes a focus on Psalm 32 seem timely. Of course, it’s a well-known psalm of thanksgiving and wisdom instruction that poetically contemplates the joy of forgiveness. It teaches us about our sin’s destructiveness and how God awakens us to repentance and to confession of sin.
Prepared for Psalms Group, January 10, 2021
Psalms 15 and 24 are liturgical psalms “of David” from Book 1 of the Psalms that were probably used as “entrance liturgies” to Israel’s worship of YHWH. Perhaps they were used by priests to teach ancient Israelites about preparation for authentic worship of YHWH, probably first in the earlier “tent” setting after David moved the Ark of the Covenant onto Mount Zion, the hill in Jerusalem, and then later in the Temple built in that same place after David’s death. (Ross, Psalms, Volume I, pp. 385-395 and pp. 573-589)
Email sent 1/8/21 preparing for Psalms Group on Sunday, 1/10/21
Dear Psalms friends,
Last week we reflected on Psalms 1 and 2, the entrance psalms into the “literary sanctuary” of the Psalms, introducing the main themes of the Psalms: surrendering to God’s working in our lives, both through his teaching and instruction (Torah) and through Torah’s fulfillment in his Anointed One, the Messiah, our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ, the ultimate Davidic King.
Prepared for Psalms Group meeting on January 3, 2021
Unlike the culture’s predominant view of the calendar year of 2020, our just-concluded journey through the Psalter ended this week with rounds of increasing praise—singing, instruments, dancing and lots of bragging and boasting about YHWH’s ultimate power over creation and nations, and His love for His people…His pleasure in us (147:11, 149:4). (See Psalms 146-150.)
Preparing for Sunday, January 3, 2021 meeting
Dear Psalms friends,
Merry Christmas! I love that our tree, manger scene, Dickens Village, St. Nicholas, wreaths, and “a multitude of the heavenly host” on our mantel and table top remind us to keep celebrating the wonder of the Incarnation. “Meekness and Majesty, manhood and deity…Bow down and worship, for this is our God,” I’m hum-muttering these lyrics as I type.
Prepared for Psalms Group, December 20, 2020
The psalmist asks God to “remember David and all his troubles.” That’s what pilgrim people needed to be reflecting on as they neared Jerusalem, some for the first time in their lives, and glimpsed the temple, according to Psalm 132. Included In the Psalter as one of the Songs of Ascent, Psalm 132 reminds those journeying people (and us as journeying people) about David’s promises to God and God’s biggest promise to David. (See Mark 13:1b for a first century person’s descriptors of the temple.)
Prepared for Psalms Group, December 13, 2020
From beginning to end the subject matter of the psalms is the Lord of Israel. In various ways the many lament psalms or prayers for help that are so pervasive in the Psalter speak to and about God; in so doing they inform the one reading them of what this God is like and why one turns in that direction in times of trouble… What happens is what aways happens in prayer: a theological understanding of the One to whom the prayer is lifted is both implicit and explicit in the prayer. We learn about God as we pray. We say what we know and believe about God as we cry out. That is certainly the case with the psalmist.
Patrick Miller, The Lord of the Psalms, from the Introduction
How often do you experience doubts about God’s existence or God’s character? What seems to trigger those doubts? How do you express those doubts?
Prepared for Psalms Group, December 6, 2020